Estelle Mining Co. Railroad (7 Tunnels in GA)

Estelle Mining Company Railroad Tunnels (1897-1924)
Estelle, Georgia

The Estelle Mining Company (later the Chattanooga Iron & Coal Company) was incorporated in 1897 to mine ore in Estelle, Georgia, a town originally known as Shaw. The company built a private narrow gauge railroad westward from the Chattanooga Southern Railroad (later Tennessee Alabama & Georgia, or TAG Railway) at Estelle. The 6-1/2 mile railroad served a number of mines along the west side of Pigeon Mountain between Estelle and its terminus at High Point. The railroad required seven tunnels, all straight and unlined with lengths ranging from 200 to 700 feet.

Gravity-powered cars first carried ore out of the mines. There, the ore was transferred to 10 and 20 ton cars and hauled east on the narrow gauge railroad to Estelle. At Estelle, soft ore was loaded directly into standard gauge railcars, whereas the hard and semi-hard ore was first run through a crusher before loading. Steam trains then hauled the loaded cars north to the Southern Steel Company's furnace at Chattanooga.

Following a temporary shutdown and sale to the Iron Products Corporation in 1919, the Estelle mines ceased operations in 1924. The town of Estelle, once home to more than 200 employees of the mining company, is now just a ghost town 20 miles south of Chattanooga along Georgia State Route 193. Much of the railroad grade including all seven tunnels still remains more than 90 years after abandonment.

Tunnels are numbered from east to west and pictured below from west to east. Distances are measured by grade from Estelle. Tunnel lengths are estimated to the nearest 50 foot increment.